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Mars: I Don’t Care If I Never Get Back…

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Natan Yellin in Writing

The Red Planet (NASA)

When I saw Cosmic Log’s article on a one-way trip to Mars, a song came to mind:

Just take me out of Earth’s Orbit,
Take me out in a ship,
Give me some robots and preservable snacks,
I don’t care if I never get back,
Lets fly, fly, fly into the heavens,
If we crash-land it’s a shame,
For it’s one, two, three, asteroids, we’re out,
Of the old Earth game.

(Poem released under CC-by – just credit this blog :) )

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My Facebook ID is 669193209. You Can Have It – Now, Here’s the Real Issue

Posted on October 19, 2010 by Natan Yellin in Privacy

Privacy by rpongsaj

When I woke up this morning, I saw a Wall Street Journal article titled “Facebook in Privacy Breach.” I read the article and at first I wasn’t concerned.

My user ID is 669193209. Take it, I thought. My privacy settings are fairly conservative so here’s what people can see if they’re not my friend.

It’s not that simple, but I didn’t realize that. I’ve played around with Facebook’s public API in the past so I was confident that user IDs don’t matter. In fact, user IDs and names are already available to the public.

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